


Painted Gold with Sunlight

by Kissa



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7376461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissa/pseuds/Kissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Sarah Rogers are a lot alike in that they're the only two people Steve has and they both love him fiercely. It only makes sense that they love each other too. Beware of light het ahead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painted Gold with Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> I feel as though I must preface this, otherwise it's weird. For some reason in my mind this totally makes sense, in an innocent kind of way. Sarah can definitely notice how nicely Bucky filled out and she is definitely grateful Steve has someone like Bucky at his side. And Bucky would of course love Sarah a lot because she's the reason he now has Steve. I don't know, this just doesn't seem dirty or questionable to me and I guess the main attraction point is the thought of how soft and loving Bucky Barnes has always been and how much of himself he was always ready to give to the ones he loved. It just makes it all the sadder to think that Hydra took that and twisted it gruesomely, nearly destroying Bucky along the way. Nearly, I say, because it's his great capacity for love and self-sacrifice that helps him survive his Winter Soldier years and reunite with Steve. I guess Hydra didn't think to counter that, so now they'll burn to the ground. Cast all of Hydra into the sun. I'll never live down how much they hurt Bucky. This story is an attempt to give him something pure and good as a memory to hold on to.

Bucky is in his twenties now and the whole world has been viewing him as a man for many years already, throwing responsibilities and expectations at him long before he started shaving and needing to give away the shirts he grew out of at an alarming rate.  
  
He never minded it, because it afforded him a certain freedom and power in the micro-world of their neighbourhood. His ma trusts him and puts him in charge over his younger sisters when she’s not there.  
  
Where his ma is strict and quickly angered, Mrs Rogers is sweet and indulgent. Whenever Bucky gets in a fight or tries to get Steve out of one, she’s the one who disinfects his scrapes and cuts. She’s the one who mends his torn shirts and who sews the buttons back onto his trousers before he can go home all torn up and his ma can scruff him for being classless and getting into fights.  
  
Bucky knows Mrs Rogers isn’t his ma, but he likes it this way, because she’s gentle and nice and he only has to share her with Steve, and he loves Steve, so it’s all good. His own ma is always in over her head in a house with an absent husband, screaming children and gossipping family who always overstay their welcome. Bucky tries to help where he can, but he finds himself the target of her outbursts too often lately.  
  
He doesn’t feel that guilty for spending more time over at Steve’s and his ma’s.  
  
When he turned eighteen and got a job as the neighbourhood milkman, even though only for the summer, he got to know every family in the neighbourhood and he learned a few secrets along the way. There are a lot of war widows living there, but very few single women. Everyone’s got something going on on the side. Everyone except Mrs Rogers, whose only extravagance is drinking her coffee on the rooftop while watching the sun rising over Brooklyn.  
  
Bucky also learned that some of the respectable gentlemen in their community are seeing younger gentlemen at night and at first he wonders about that, but one morning he sees one of these guys trying to stealthily get rid of a bunch of used condoms, burying them at the bottom of a public trash can and looking around conspiratorially as though he’s buried a corpse.  
  
Bucky gasps and thinks of how close he and Steve are. He thinks of how Steve’s ma saw the way they look at each other and especially the way he looks at Steve. He thinks of how she doesn’t mind, she just smiles sadly and looks away with a sigh. At first he thought it was because she misses her own husband, but now that he learned that loving a guy is not only not allowed, but also illegal, he understands why Mrs Rogers is sad.  
  
But Mrs Rogers is a real doll, and she’s sweet like the heavy, dense chocolate squares she keeps bringing them. When he turned eighteen, she told Bucky he can call her “Sarah” now. It felt awkward at first, but Bucky had to agree “Mrs Rogers” is too heavy a name for the petite wisp of a woman.  
  
She’s his favourite person in the world, right next to Steve. Sarah is the most beautiful being Bucky has ever laid eyes on and she passed her frail beauty on to Steve. The stubbornness and recklessness, that has got to be from Steve’s dad, Bucky thinks. She’s thin and small like Steve, but she commands respect and has authority over Steve and Bucky even though she never screams or hurls humiliating words at them. It’s just that upsetting her seems like this big sacrilege and both Steve and Bucky avoid that like the plague.  
  
Sarah also looks a lot younger than her actual years. Her strawberry blond hair doesn’t have grey strands, her face is line-free and her body didn’t crumble under the burden of long wards at the hospital. And just by looking at her, you couldn’t tell she’s had a kid at seventeen because she doesn’t look much older than that. When they go to church together on Sundays, the three of them, sometimes other churchgoers mistake Bucky for the father who brought his two children to mass.  


Bucky knows he looks much older than he is, but then again, he’s a man and things aren’t getting easier as he ages, as more responsibilities and worries weigh on his shoulders. But he’s not worried, he knows he’s strong and he can take whatever he’s dealt.  
  
Only Sarah still treats him as the kid she first met him as. She gives him chocolate, she washes his clothes and irons his shirts for when he has a date, she knots his tie and smooths his hair while standing on tiptoe because Bucky got really tall now and she still kisses his forehead good night whenever he and Steve are turning in early. And she pretends she can’t see the light from under the blanket as Bucky shines a flashlight over a comicbook and Steve turns the pages.  
  
Lately though, Bucky has started to be jittery around Sarah. It started on the day when he arrived at her and Steve’s place while she and Steve were talking. Steve had been sick for days in a row and as usual, he felt terrible for being a burden, even though he never really was and Sarah had tried to remind him how much she loved him, regardless of how he turned out.  
  
Bucky had found them hugging, Steve sitting down with his ear pressed to his ma’s belly and holding her close while Sarah stroked his hair gently, as though calming a frightened cat. She had told Steve he was her biggest joy and that she’d felt it since he’d been a tiny bundle in her belly and that would never change.  
  
Bucky had gone back outside pretending he was leaving them some privacy to finish their moment, but in fact Sarah’s words had reached him in a way that troubled him deeply.  
  
First off, it was the very simple fact that Sarah openly spoke to her son about him having come from her belly. Bucky had never heard anyone talk about that, much less to their own kids. Kids just happened, right? And no one spoke of kids in terms of gift or joy, because everyone was too poor to even afford kids.  
  
Secondly, Bucky couldn’t wrap his mind fully around exactly how brave Sarah was. She had been so young, and yet she’d put up with so much, she had stood up to so many voices who, full of authority and false compassion, had tried to sway her into giving her sick baby away.  
  
Bucky loved her so much for having stood by Steve through all that, through sleepless nights of coughing and choking, through fever bouts, hospital stays and more death scares than anyone should be asked to withstand in their life. She was the only living being who loved Steve more than Bucky did and the thought filled Bucky with reverence.  
  
He also thought of how Sarah had given him Steve in the first place. He had only been taught the gross, basic details of the whole thing, enough to keep himself away from becoming a father against his own will, but Bucky often thought of how hard and scary it must be for a woman to make a baby.  
  
In their poor neighbourhood, there were families where kids were born all the time but they never saw their first birthday and no one said anything because that was how things were. Some women never put their new babies to their breast; other babies would die of cold, of hunger or from the many diseases thriving in the damp and dirty ratholes their landlords called apartments.  
  
And then there was Sarah, shy and quiet Sarah who had never stood up for herself, but who had planted herself right in front of the church women’s committee and she had told them she did not need their money and their advice, because she and her little son would make it without the backhanded charity of the church. They had said Steve would not live past the age of two, and yet here he was. Still not caught up on growing body-wise, but with the biggest, bravest heart of anyone Bucky had ever known.  
  
So he loved Sarah and sometimes he thought of her while he lay in bed next to Steve, his little friend huddled in the blankets and clinging to him for heat. Sarah would be in the other room and Bucky would wonder, did she never feel alone? Did she never miss having someone to share her warmth with at night? At the same time, he wanted to keep the whole world away from her, he wanted to protect her from all things ugly and low, and that included himself with his weird, intrusive thoughts. Bucky learned to stifle the way his heart would plummet and his chest would feel all warm inside whenever Sarah made them breakfast in the morning or when she straightened their ties before a movie date with girls.  
  
One day though, Bucky caught Sarah looking. It wasn’t the dirty and greedy look all the others got when they noticed him and decided they had to have him. But she was looking as though she liked what she saw and Bucky felt heat rise in his cheeks as he moved a bunch of crates in the back of the grocery store where he worked and where Sarah had stopped to buy pasta. He had shed his vest and shirt, keeping only his undershirt on because it was getting warm and he didn’t want to sweat and stink to high heavens by the time his shift was over.

And Sarah had seen him lug heavy crates around, a thin sheen of sweat already on his straining muscles.  
  
The next morning, Bucky woke up way earlier than needed, since it was a Sunday and he didn’t need to show up at work. But it was really early, early enough that his whole family still slept and he was able to get dressed, nick some of the good coffee he’d brought home from work and leave without having to face questions.  
  
He went straight to Sarah and Steve’s place and gently pressed down on the door handle, letting himself in. Sarah had just gotten home from her shift and she had changed out of her uniform, but she still had her stockings on under the house gown.  
  
Bucky held up the bag of coffee and smiled.

A quarter of an hour later, they were both sitting on the roof, with a cup of steaming hot coffee each and with a bag of chocolate squares between them.They watched the sun rise quietly, enjoying the cool morning breeze on their skins and the serene silence over the still sleeping Brooklyn.

Sarah held up the bag of chocolate until Bucky took a square. 

  
“Careful with these. This is the good stuff. Let the square melt on your tongue, don’t chew. It’ll be bitter if you chew it.” She instructed, watching Bucky reach into the bag and pick a square, taking her advice.  
  
At first, Bucky thought this “good stuff” was overrated, he could only taste bitterness and, vaguely, mud. He didn’t want to upset Sarah though so he kept switching the square around in his mouth, letting it melt. Then, suddenly, pure bliss exploded on his tongue, traveling through all available pathways to his brain and spreading in waves and waves of pleasure through his entire body. It was something unlike anything he’d experienced before.

The chocolate tasted so intense, so enticing, a mix of all the tastes in perfect balance so that even the farthest, smallest part of Bucky was satisfied in several different ways.  
  
He felt drugged and maybe the moan that followed was his, but he could not tell or care at that time.  
  
Sarah was sipping her coffee, smiling shyly and watching Bucky knowingly.  
  
He oozed from his seat and came to kneel next to her, in front of her crossed legs.  
  
“It’s so good,” he said, sighing. “Thank you, Sarah.”  
  
“Mmmhm,” she said, extending a hand and carding her fingers through Bucky’s thick and soft hair.  
  
He looked up at her in awe. She was so beautiful and pale, and even tired after a long night shift, she was as lovely as the new day’s rising sun. Bucky’s lips parted and his breath caught in his throat. He distantly felt a caress across his lower lip, Sarah’s thumb stopping at the corner of his mouth. It made him smile under the gentle touch.  
  
Bucky felt the thumb being replaced by lips and soon his senses were invaded by Sarah’s scent and taste, coffee and chocolate and something else, which he had to have more of, so he leaned into the kiss and made it real by parting his lips and taking control. He wished he had more experience, he wished he could sweep Sarah off her feet, but this was already perfect and still so innocent and loving. Steve’s ma was kissing his lips, but it was soft and undemanding, more like a _thank you_ than a _please_ . Bucky had never felt more powerful and more loved before in his whole life than in that moment.  
  
He pushed himself up on his arms on the edges of her chair, asking for more from the kiss while the euphoria lasted.  
  
Eventually, they parted and Bucky went to sit back in his chair near Sarah, and as soon as he sat down again, she stretched her legs across his thighs.  
  
Bucky looked at the delicate stockinged feet in his lap and he touched one, careful not to tickle, looking at Sarah. She was fine with the touch and he began to patiently massage and relax one foot, then the other, helping her put the eight hours of standing up in uncomfortable shoes behind her.  
  
Too soon for Bucky’s taste, the moment ended because Brooklyn had woken up all around them and they were no longer alone in the world. They gathered their cups and Bucky took the chocolate before they went back to the apartment, where Steve was soon going to wake up and Sarah began making breakfast.  
  
Nothing felt out of place or awkward between them and Bucky had known it would be like this. Steve and Sarah were his just as he was theirs, without any big words or gestures having been exchanged. It was a nice thought, to have a safe place, a secret slice of heaven in that hopeless corner.  
  
Steve soon woke up and started to get ready for church, eating breakfast with Bucky and Sarah and asking Bucky if he was up for coming to church that time around. He knew his ma would not have the energy to come along, having just finished a long shift and needing the rest more than she needed the sermon.  
  
Bucky told Steve he’d walk with him to church if he wanted to, or pick him up, but he added that he didn’t feel like attending that day, so Steve let him off easily by asking if he could come pick him up from there at noon, which Bucky immediately agreed on.  
  
Once Steve left, they were alone in the apartment and Bucky hugged Sarah close, holding her in his arms and making her almost disappear in his embrace. She was so good to him, he could feel she loved him just like she loved Steve, well, maybe without the constant worrying that he too might die on his next irregular breath.  
  
He’s certain she doesn’t want-want him, like the others do. But there’s something about her lately, something desperate in the slow way she savours everything, in the persistent way she brings back memories for Steve to relive and in how she keeps telling him he’s the best and brightest thing in her life.  
  
Maybe Sarah is hiding something, or maybe loneliness finally got to her and she’s awkwardly reaching out and relearning that she’s alive for other reasons than to work.  
  
It doesn’t cross Bucky’s mind that it might be wrong to spend so much time alone with her, and it definitely doesn’t matter to him that she’s not his age. A stranger looking at them for the first time wouldn’t guess she could be his ma.  
  
Well, she’s Steve’s ma and the thought fills Bucky with longing and gratitude too. This small, frail body once served as the fortress protecting the most precious treasure in his world. He’d give her anything, anything she wanted that was his to give.  
  
She cries softly in the fabric of his shirt and he lets her, gently picking her up and taking her to her room, where he carefully lays her down on her bed.  
  
Sarah sits up and wraps her arms around Bucky, making a pleading sound and kissing him, just as desperately but chastely as she did on the roof.  
  
It occurs to Bucky that, despite having been married and having had a baby, she might still be new to tenderness from a man’s touch. And he, he could never be rough with Sarah, even if she asked him to, though he has a feeling she won’t, and he’s right. He hasn’t gathered that much experience yet and though he is still amazed at how different every girl is, he has already decided what he likes best for himself.  
  
Bucky thinks that the slow burn of unrushed kisses and lingering caresses is way more rewarding than rough, hurried rubbing and tugging. He doesn’t like it when his lovers mark him and he has to go to work looking like he’s been sewn into a sack with angry cats.

So he carefully opens up to Sarah, lets her take what she needs from him, guides her through it and covers her in worshipping kisses. He helps her undress and gasps softly at how beautiful she is. He’s never seen her like this and he never thought of her like this, but her skin is just as white and flawless as Steve’s, perhaps softer and smoother, and she smells so clean and soft, he can’t resist her. He lets his lips wander down her body, still gentle and awed, and he pauses to kiss her belly and nuzzle the taut, soft skin there before going lower.

  
He’s never gone down on a girl before, but he was told he’d be amazing at it because girls really love his plump, perfectly arched and soft lips. So Bucky puts his imagination to work and makes his lips fit against Sarah, still going slow and watching her. She writhes needily against his mouth, wanting more of what he’s offering, letting him part her and sneak his tongue inside her.  
  
Bucky moans at her taste, she’s amazing, no one told him it would be this good and he moves in closer, kissing her there as though he would kiss her mouth, her muffled whimpers all the encouragement he needs.  
  
He’s amazed when she comes, his name on her lips, a hand in his hair and one coming to cover her mouth, writhing for many moments and having trouble catching her breath. He’s never been so proud in his life, knowing that he managed to make her feel like that is exhilarating and so, so good. Bucky’s mind is swimming in an ocean of pure bliss and he moves up again to gather Sarah in his arms and hold her against his chest.  
  
He notices the tears which fell from her eyes, leaving wet trails on her cheeks. But Sarah smiles up at him and he’s reassured again. In fact, he’s never been more excited to be close to someone than he is now, but then again, he’s never been with anyone at daytime, with light flooding the small room and painting them golden.  
  
Bucky thinks of how lazy he’s feeling, how good and how naughty it is to still be tasting Sarah while the priest in church hasn’t even got to the part where he reads the gospel. He thinks of Steve, sitting and listening attentively in church and glaring at the neighbourhood women who sometimes whisper during the service. Bucky briefly considers mentioning this in confession next week, but he decides against it. God saw and didn’t disapprove, and no one else needs to know.  
  
They stay close like that, Bucky shrugging off his shirt along the way, letting Sarah trace the contours of his bulging muscles with her fingers. He knows she likes that, she’s seen her looking and he knows he’s exotic and gorgeous to her like a peacock. She so rarely, if ever, between her family and her work, got so close to a healthy body pulsing with life and sheer strength. So Bucky lets her touch him to her heart’s content, making delighted sounds when her hands get bold and slip beneath his undershirt, mapping the contours of his abs.  


Bucky does some mapping of his own, his upper hand, the one he is not holding Sarah close with, sliding over the soft plains and valleys of her breasts and belly. He really wants to give her this, wants to see her fly apart under his touch, still gentle and loving. This time he’s using his thumb and two fingers while his tongue is claiming her mouth.

The sounds she makes are exquisite and she feels so _alive_ in his arms. Her hips are grinding as though they have a mind of their own and even lifting off the bed. Her eyes are glazed with pleasure and she watches Bucky with such love, he’s melting under that gaze and kissing her with renewed heat. 

This time they come together, Bucky in his pants like he hasn’t done since he was twelve but not caring one bit, way too absorbed in the way Sarah’s tight entrance squeezes around his fingers, the way her whole body flushes pink with the rush of pleasure exploding all over her, pleasure _he_ caused.  
  
Bucky’s drugged with the way Sarah comes alive under him and for long moments he can’t think of anything else. He’s pretty sure he’s never felt like this with anyone else before, and something tells him no one will match this feeling after, either. In the few moments he’s allowed himself to think of Steve in his arms, just as naked and trembling as Sarah is now, Bucky tried to imagine how Steve would feel, how he would look if Bucky managed to make him lose himself like this. But it’s different, because they’re both guys and Bucky knows how quick and powerful and suddenly over release can be for them. But those thoughts are locked away deep, deep inside in a dark corner of his mind, because while it’s no secret that he loves Steve, it’s always assumed to be in a big brother kind of way. And Bucky does love Steve like that too, he loves him like that first and stifles the other feeling before a slip-up can cost Steve his freedom or his life. They live in a world where it’s just not allowed to love another man and the punishments are life-threatening.  
  
He stays with Sarah once they come down from their shared fuzzy cloud and he goes to find a small towel, which he wets lightly and uses it to clean Sarah and himself. He helps her dress in her sleeping clothes and holds the blankets for her, staying with her until her breath evens out and she’s asleep.  
  
Bucky needs long minutes to compose himself and set foot back out in the world. This was by far the best thing he’s ever been allowed to feel in his life so far and he commits the memory to the deepest, safest vault of his mind.  


* * *

  
  
He picks up shift after shift at work when Sarah gets taken to the TB ward, unable to accept what’s unfolding, and knowing that Steve needs him. But at that time, he’s unable to be strong and he knows he’s no use to Steve like this.  
  
Bucky stops believing in God when they lower Sarah into the ground. He has to maintain a cool and detached front on the outside, but inside he’s crumbling and ugly-crying, needing to punch things, wanting to destroy the world in which people like Sarah are just left to die in such a slow and cruel way. He fears himself and he doesn’t want to be around Steve when he’s like this, but Steve needs him and so he puts up a brave front. Now Steve’s all he’s got.  
  
And still he doesn’t get his chance to tell Steve how he feels before he falls.

 

* * *

  
  
They’ve been doing some serious catching-up since T’Challa’s scientists managed to remove the Winter Soldier from Bucky’s mind, with Wanda’s help.  
  
Now Bucky is recovering, the pace is slow and sometimes it’s two steps back and one step forward, but Steve’s grateful to have the other half of his soul back. They admitted to each other, with little drama and surprise, that they’ve always loved each other. It’s still a blur of feelings and Steve is in no rush to put a label on it.  
  
“I have a confession to make,” Bucky says one day. “I, uh, touched your ma.”  
  
Steve shrugs.  
  
“That’s not a crime, Buck,” he says.  
  
“I mean, not casually. We… I mean I… I _touched_ your ma.” Bucky repeats, not sure if Steve understands _how_ .  
  
“I could sort of tell…?” Steve confesses as well.  
  
“How?” Bucky splutters. “And didn’t you hate me for it?”  
  
“I knew I was supposed to feel weird about it, but… I was just grateful she wasn’t all that lonely before she died.” He says. “And I’m glad it was you.”  
  
“How could you tell, though? Nothing changed between us, at home or otherwise.” Bucky tried to find out.  
  
Steve laughed softly.  
  
“You stopped sleeping with women altogether since then, Buck. You’d go on dates, dance with the dames and then bring them right back home like a gentleman… and then come over to our place to hang out with sickly old me and ma. I was really upset that you disappeared when she was dying… but afterwards, I understood.”  
  
“We weren’t… lovers like people usually are. I never… damn. It’s hard to word it. But I couldn’t not love her. I couldn’t deny her anything because she gave me you.”  
  
Truth be told, Bucky was relieved. Steve was a man of very strong beliefs and Bucky had expected him to want to fight him for what had gone on with Sarah. But apparently Steve could surprise even him and in this instance, Bucky was grateful for it. 


End file.
